Kobe Bryant has written a children's song about Brad Stevens

Kobe Bryant now spends his days trying to entertain children with animated videos and ensemble podcast productions. One of the Mamba’s featured songs is about Celtics head coach Brad Stevens.

Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins profiles Bryant’s production company, which is located in Southern California just one building over from the Chargers’ facilities. Since retiring from the NBA, Bryant has delved into the entertainment world, winning an Oscar for his animated short film, “Dear Basketball.” Next year, Kobe plans to release three three young-adult novels written by fantasy-genre authors, set in a world where sports is the only thing that’s real.

“If Harry Potter and the Olympics had a baby, that would be the world we’re trying to communicate,” Bryant told Jenkins. “There’s fantasy—dreamlike, magical elements—but it’s a magic kids can experience.” He discovered this world, which he calls Granity, during his last training camp at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu. Bryant had suffered three season-ending injuries in a row and recognized his basketball career was waning. He wrestled with what to do afterward. He sounded, for a moment, like a Lost Bean. “What I love,” Bryant said one rainy afternoon at the Hilton three years ago, “is storytelling. I love the idea of creative content, whether it’s mythology or animation, written or film, that can inspire people and give them something tangible they can use in their own lives.”

Bryant has already partnered with ESPN, hosting the “Detail,” his film breakdown show, on the network last postseason. The five-time NBA champion also produces animated short segments for ESPN, titled “Musecage.” That’s where Stevens comes into the picture. He’s the subject of one of Bryant’s jingles:

“You can see what happens, I can see why, I can see adjustments made in real time.

“You can see who’s open, I can tell you how and why, For this is a game of the mind.”

Bryant’s musical reverence for Stevens isn’t a surprise. In May, the Lakers’ great lavished Stevens with praise in a radio interview following the Celtics’ Game 3 win over the Sixers, in which the coach drew up two dazzling after-timeout plays.

“To be able to see the game like that requires a lot of film study,” Bryant said on Fox Sports Radio, per Boston.com. “Watching film over and over and over, studying over and over and over, to then be able to observe things in real time. That can only be done by a person who has that level of commitment to the game . . . It doesn’t happen if you don’t have it.”

Perhaps Stevens, the coach who can see it all, will be a reoccurring character in Bryant’s fictional world.

Post navigation

Blog dedicated to the best team in the NBA – the Boston Celtics! Follow for the latest and up to date Boston Celtics rumors, news, score, game recaps and more! The articles posted are from multiple RSS feeds and give a link back to the original source if you’d like to read them there.